Parallax
Two carpenters
Rebuild the church steeple
for Greg Joly
Farmer
A beautiful pickup truck with the fanciest side mirrors
on both doors. It seemed like 3D. This is the truck the
heavy set worker arrived in. The t-shirt was gray and
molded over a barrel chest and double barrel gut. The
arms the size of my thighs. Something happened along
the years because he couldn’t hide the limp. He was
coming to measure up a wood pellet furnace. I could
tell he didn’t know all that much about the furnace
except he burned pellets in his own wood pellet stove.
He knew the pellets were shipped to the northeast
from the Rockies, Pennsylvania and somewheres in
Canada. Canada always gets a “somewheres”. It’s a big
place. Since he didn’t know much about pellets, and
his body was a steady worker’s, I asked him what he
did before pellets. Farmer. One word sufficient. But
said with the great tongue of a cow so it sounded like
I suddenly loved the word more than ever.
He said he once had a farm called River Maple. And I
said my wife and I for thirty-five years have passed the
large barn sign for this place and always wondered why
it wasn’t Maple River. Well, which came first: the river or
the maple? he asked me. I said, The river — it feeds the
maples to grow. He smiled at that, as if his grandfather
who gave the farm this name once explained it to him
this way when he was a boy. Yes, he suddenly looked
boyish as we said goodbye when he left.
July in the Sun
We pick blueberries this way —
I wear jeans and t-shirt
you wear a pretty dress
the rest is easy
After the War
He’s hobbled around on one good leg and
The other fake leg for nearly forty years —
That’s what his government gave to him
No one could give him the tenacity to survive
He did that all on his own, plus with
A monthly pension paid by the same government
The best thing that ever happened, is how
He sized his injury up — a hard drinker’s grin
One leg for all these years paid income. Not bad!
He’s built his own spot in the woods
Does everything another seems to be able to do
Complete with junker cars, thrift clothes, a garden
And maybe she’s a wife or a girlfriend
But she looks very close to dying —
I didn’t have the heart to ask her story
______________
Bob Arnold
Yokel
Longhouse
2011
